Animorphs: Cassie's Downfall
by Jolly Jeff
Summary: Title just for drama. What will happen when the Yeerks track Cassie to her house? (Just as a warning: Isn't as interesting as it sounds. Only saying this because I don't get money if people read it. ;)
1. Chapter One

Cassie's Downfall (Author's Note: For those who have finished the series, please note that this story takes place during the war because it was fun to think up stories for that time period. Also before (if you haven't finished the series, don't look at this sentence because it will ruin it for you) the Yeerks knew the Animorphs names and that they were human and where they lived. . .you get the picture. DEATH TO THE YEERKS!!!  
  
Right, the chapter. I'm Tobias. Can't tell my last name. You know the drill by now. Hopefully. If not, get one of the books and read it. I looked down. The mouse twitched. He must have sensed something. He looked up. He froze. I grinned in my head. Target locked. . .my wings closed in close to my sides. I gained speed. My talons tightened around him and I flared my wings. There was warm blood on my talons. I covered my pray with my wings. Then, I heard a rustle of feathers above. I looked up. Uh-oh. Some other hawk. He thought this was his territory. Tough luck. For him, that is. I glared up at him. He looked down at me. He gave a loud call and rustled his wings again. I wouldn't be the first to back off. I stared up at him and started to eat, ignoring him. He hopped off of the branch and dived at me. I grabbed the mouse in my beak and the exact second he would have hit me, pulled it with me out of the way. He took to the sky. A few seconds later, he was chasing me again. I dodged again. He reached for my mouse. I bit him on his talon. Bit it right off. He screamed and flew away in panic. I watched for a while and then ate my mouse. I knew he wouldn't be back any time soon. When I was done, I flew over to Jake's house. I flew past his window and saw that he wasn't there. I made my way back to my meadow. I saw Ax. There were two people walking over to Cassie's house. I followed them. One was tall and well-built, the other was short and slightly chubby. They were talking. You ought to know by now that hawks have good hearing. I didn't need to get any closer. "I know I saw the bird fly back here. I got Huref six-one-double-four to follow it last night. . .now what would an Andalite be doing in a human house?" said Chubby. "I dunno. . .maybe they have a hideout there?" Tall. I had heard enough. I flew hard to Cassie's window. I heard her bustling about in her room. {Cassie! Cassie, there are two people outside coming to the house! They-- oops. . .} Cassie wasn't in there. It was her mom, tidying up. Not good. She looked up. "______, did you say something?" said her mother to her father. You aren't allowed to know the name. (Plus there's the added fact that I forgot. . .) "No, why?" "Odd. I could've sworn I heard something. . ." I flew around the house, looking through windows. Cassie definitely wasn't inside. Then where was she? I flew away from the house as one of the Controllers knocked on the door and rang the bell. I saw Cassie emerge from Rachel's house when I went there. I went there partly because Rachel was Cassie's best friend, and partly because Rachel would know what to do if Cassie wasn't there. {Rachel! Cassie! Emergency!} Cassie looked up. So did Rachel. I continued. {Two men! Going towards your house. Heard them talking. One said that he saw you flying to that house last night. He says he told Herkef one- something to tail you there. They might break in! What should I do?} Rachel was already morphing grizzly. "Rachel!" said Cassie, putting a hand on Rachel's shoulder. "No! Anyone might see you morph!" {And even if they don't see you morph, a grizzly bear running through town will probably raise some concern, from Yeerks *and* humans,} I interjected. {I think the best thing to do is spy right now. I'm gonna go. You two morph birds and follow. Cassie, don't try to get inside. Your mother probably thinks you're out and if the Controllers hear her saying so, then they might suspect something. Bye. Oh, Rachel, go to Jake's and tell him about this. Cassie should come with me because it's her house. Go!} I took off and power-flew to Cassie's. A few seconds later, I saw an osprey come up behind me. {Hello, Cassie.} {I can't believe I was that stupid!} she panted. {I let him follow me and find my house! I--} {Cassie. Listen to me. It wasn't your fault. There was no way you could've known he was following you. Rachel and Jake should be here soon,} I said looking back. No one. {Maybe Marco too, if they remembered him.} I added. {Speaking of Rachel, she was pretty mad that you had *her*, of all people, go tell Jake. You know she always wants to be in on the action. . .} {Speak of the devil--and a few of his demons.} I said. An osprey, falcon, and bald eagle had just flown up. {You're the devil, Tobias! I heard that you forgot to tell them to get me, too. Just Jake? Perhaps you couldn't bear to see me if I wasn't in my handsome human form, Rachel? And of course, your wish is Tobias's command. So you "forgot" to tell Jake to get me, right?} He turned to Rachel. {Actually, I only said Jake because he is the leader and planner,} I said smoothly. {And he is the one who should know about this first. In fact, I was in such a panic that I even forgot about Ax. I'll go get him.} I started flying away. I found Ax, drinking by putting his hoof in the water. {Ax! Yeerks at Cassie's house. One saw her osprey fly away and told another one to follow her.} {I will come immediately. Do not wait for me.} I flew back meanwhile and warned the others to stay apart. {You should be particularly worried about attracting attention now; we know two Yeerks are right in this house! Don't stay together! Birds of prey do *not* fly in formation!} I shouted. They scattered. I sighed. "Excuse me, Mrs. ______," said Tall, "but are you sure you did not see an osprey flying to your house last night? I mean, we're starting to be worried. He's not as well as he thinks. He shouldn't be flying. Well, if you find him, please take all possible measures to subdue him and bring him to us. Thank you. We're terribly worried." "Well, thanks anyway for your help. We hope he turns up. . ." said Chubby. {Not good. . .} I began. {He knows that an Andalite came here last night. I'm not particularly worried about Cassie's mom finding Cassie, or Marco, because he's an osprey too.} Marco sniggered. {What is she going to do, shoot every osprey she sees with a tranquilizer and her super aiming abilities and magically find out two unknown, probably insane, guys' address and bring the bird there because those same two unknown people asked her to?} The man gave his business card to Cassie's mom and said something about the Sharing. And how she should join. Gulp. {Address not so unknown now, is it?} said Jake softly. {And what if she does join the Sharing? Then what?} Marco was silent. {Whatever the case,} I began, {We should follow and see what he's doing. I think. . .I have an idea.} {Well?} said Marco. {Whatever it is,} said Rachel, {I've got a better one! I say, get down there, battle morphs, and eat them both whole!} {Now, if *anyone* but Rachel had said that, I'd have agreed,} groaned Marco. {But no. It had to be Rachel.} {Hello! Listen up. Tobias has an idea! Pay attention.} {Thank you, Jake,} I said. {Follow them. When they go somewhere that they can't be seen, as they're guaranteed to do, they hosts' home, for example, capture them, interrogate them, and keep them for three days.} {But where?} said Jake. { I mean, someone's going to notice they're gone. Wife, for example. They're not going to go unnoticed. The Yeerks will find out.} {I know,} I continued, {But if we don't take them, they're going to report back to the Yeerks and then, big trouble. Also, on second thought, we should find Huref whatever-his-number-was. Take him too.} I stopped talking. The Controllers had looked up. We had unconsciously grouped back together while we were talking. {Split up!} shouted Jake. {Don't go back to your homes! Fly around till you lose them. Then get back home in human morph. Ax can morph flee and hitch a ride on Tobias. Go!} We went. I flew away from the others, but told Ax to come with me. I led. He followed. I flew all about, weaving around buildings. I flew onto an empty roof, looked around, and called out to Ax. {Ax! Morph here. Andalite and flea. Hurry!} I hopped off of the roof and flew a quick circle above the street. The guys were driving in their cars, looking around. One pointing up at me and fired a Dracon beam. I dodged an landed on another rooftop, leading them away from Ax. {Ax, are you done yet?} I called. {I am ready. Do not come until you have lost the Yeerks. We do not want them finding us.} Who was he kidding? Me? Get captured by Yeerks? Ha! As if! I flew over a building. I waited till the Yeerks had gone around it in their car. Then, I took off back to Ax's building. {Ax, I think we should wait a while. The Yeerks are still tailing us. Maybe if I had a different morph. . .can you think of anything?} {Every morph that I come up with is for battling and will make us more conspicuous.} {Wait! Human! I'll climb into the building and morph human. Stay flea.} I morphed. The eyes were terrible. I don't know how you guys can use these human eyes. I couldn't see a thing. I climbed down into the building through a skylight roof that. . .er. . .*broke*. I ran down the hall and into the elevator. I pressed floor one. Luckily, no one else was in the elevator. When we got to the first floor, I walked out of the front door and got on a bus. I got as close to my meadow as I could safely and then got off. I walked the rest of the way. When it was safe, I demorphed. I watched as Ax turned into an Andalite. I turned away in the middle because it was disgusting. When I looked again, it was Ax with no stalk eyes and weirdly bent back legs. {That was close.} I said. {Yes.} answered Ax, fully morphed now. I flew away. About an hour later, I saw Jake, Marco, Cassie, and--wait! Where was Rachel? She wasn't with them. Oh, no. {Where's Rachel?} I asked. {We don't--} said Jake, demorphing. "Know. We lost her." I stared. 


	2. Chapter Two

Animorphs Chapter Two  
  
Jake  
  
{You're joking.}  
"I'm not. She flew down by a building and got jerked into a window," I said. Marco sniggered. Tobias glared right at him.  
"A-ha. . .ha. . .h--" Tobias fluttered down at him and he ducked. Tobias flew back to his branch.  
"Let's go in the barn," I said, trying to get their minds off of the topic at hand. We'd have to come back to it eventually, though. We walked to the barn.  
"Well. . ." I cleared my throat. "We don't know anything, but that she was captured. It might not even be the Yeerks. Of course, that's a bit much to expect. . ." My voice trailed off.  
"Just because Rachel isn't here to say it, I say--let's go kick some Yeerk butt!" Marco, of course.  
"Just this once, I agree with Marco," I said, "I would say battle morphs, charge into the Yeerk pool, grab Rachel, and charge right back out, but it could be a trap. Then again, we've been in many traps."  
"We don't have much time!" said Cassie nervously. "They could be dunking her head in the Yeerk pool right now!" She shuddered.  
{I agree with Prince Jake that it could be a trap, but I also agree with Cassie that if we do not act soon it could be too late.} Ax, obviously.  
"Don't call me Prince, Ax," I said absently. "Come on! Let's go. Bird of prey morphs. We'll take the school entrance. Battle morphs when we get there. Go!" I know that was kind of a stupid decision, but what could I do? Rachel was about to be taken by the Yeerks. We morphed.  
Halfway there, we suddenly found Rachel. She was in eagle morph.  
{Guys, the Yeerks tried to take me! Then I morphed grizzly and ha! No chance!}  
{You didn't kill anyone, did you? Like last time.} I said, remembering the time Rachel had caused an old guy to have a heart attack when she morphed grizzly. Rachel remained silent for a few seconds. I guess she felt kind of guilty.  
{Well. . .one guy was bleeding pretty bad, but I didn't stay that long. I don't know what happened to him,} said Rachel. I sighed.  
{Hey guys! I found this room and it's got secret files in it! What I can't figure out is why they don't have them on computer. But who cares? The guy went all white when I found it. That was before I morphed grizzly. He was the guy bleeding bad.}  
{I am suspicious. There is no reason for the files to be stored anywhere but on a computer. Rachel may be a Yeerk. In three days we shall know,} said Ax.  
{I don't think so,} I said. Of course, there was no way to tell.  
{Come on!} said Rachel. She didn't know what we were talking about, because we were using private thought-speak. I did the thought-speak equivalent of looking at my companions and shrugging.  
Out loud I simply said, {Let's go.} Rachel led the way, Ax voicing his doubts in private thought-speak the whole time.  
When we arrived, Rachel gave the closed window a hard peck. It broke into pieces.  
{I would think the Yeerks would have some sort of alarm system, not to mention bulletproof or harder glass,} said Ax in private thought-speak. I was getting tired of his doubts. I ignored him and we flew in. I saw some people jumping out from under the desk. They aimed some sort of weapon, not a Dracon beam, at us and pulled. Then, everything went black.  
I woke up. I was demorphed. I tried to stand up, but I couldn't move. My eyes opened. Funny. I didn't open them. They opened by themselves.  
{Figured it out yet?} asked a small voice in my head. I jerked. Or at least, I would've jerked if I hadn't been controlled by a Yeerk. Rachel had been taken already. This was a trap. I should've listened to Ax. But it was too late now. For only the second time in my life, I had a Yeerk in my head.  
I was a Controller. 


	3. Chapter Three

Chapter Three  
  
Rachel  
  
I couldn't believe it. It was so embarrassing. I had been yanked through a window and turned into a Controller. Then, I had led them to where other Yeerks lay in wait, ready to put yet more disgusting Yeerks in my friends' heads. I was disgusted.  
{Not as good as you thought you were, Miss Animorph?} said the Yeerk.  
{Shut up!} I shouted.  
{Why talk to me? I can read your every thought.} I kept silent this time. No point in talking. He was right. He morphed me into a bald eagle. I could feel him prying into my mind, sifting through my knowledge and thoughts. I would've felt sick, but my body wasn't mine to feel sick with. So I just felt disgusted. The Yeerk stretched out my wings, ready to take off. Suddenly, something cold and traveling very fast hit the side of my head. I knew nothing more.  
When I awoke, I was tied up. I tried to look around, but two things stopped me: one was the fact that I was now a Controller. The other was the fact that I was blindfolded.  
{Awake, are you? Yeerk! I am addressing you!} said Ax's cold voice. The Yeerk continued to ignore him.  
{Yeerk!} said Ax again. {Answer!} The Yeerk was still ignoring him.  
{Very well,} said Ax. {It does not matter whether you answer. You will be dead in a matter of three days in any case.} The Yeerk said to me something along the lines of, {Dream on, Andalite filth}.  
{You dream on, Yeerk!} I shouted. He ignored me and started to demorph. I supposed Ax didn't care, because he wasn't doing anything about it. What really was bad was when the Yeerk started to morph flea.  
{Ax!} I cried, knowing it wouldn't do any good. Only the Yeerk could hear me. Luckily, before I was fully morphed Ax hit me with his tail blade and I blacked out. When I awoke, the Yeerk demorphed, losing hope completely. I suddenly realized I was in a glass cage. The Yeerk laughed and kicked as hard as I could at the side of the cage. Nothing happened, except a recording played.  
"Do not try to escape," said the voice of Ax's human morph. "It is useless. There are no cracks, so do not be tempted to morph a small animal. Morphing a large animal will merely result in severe pain." (Ax must have worked hard to keep from playing with the words.) I didn't think anyone would be stupid enough to test that theory. I was wrong. The Yeerk started morphing elephant. The cage started feeling awfully tight. The Yeerk kept morphing 'til I was almost fully elephant. It was painful. He demorphed. I sensed he was giving up hope. I was glad.  
I wondered how Ax had escaped being a Controller. I also wondered how he would explain away our absence for three days. It was simple when only Jake was a Controller. Ax could just morph him. But Ax couldn't morph all five of us at the same time.  
Then it hit me! The Chee! The Chee could imitate us and help keep the Yeerks from escaping. The Yeerk had already figured it out. He hadn't told me because he'd wanted me to be as uncomfortable as possible. Ha! There was no way the Yeerks could win this one. After three days, they would be dead and we would be free to take our lives back where the Chee had left off.  
Well, what can I say? It was a fairly uneventful three days. The Yeerk had tried to morph elephant once more and escape. It worked this time about as well as it did the first time. The Yeerks also morphed animals small enough to fit in the cage so they could devise escape methods with each other by thought-speak. They didn't come up with anything, luckily. At the end, the Yeerk was saying every curse he knew, down-putting my friends and me and saying everything he could to discourage us. Stuff like how his death was trivial, and the Yeerks would win the war. The Yeerks had weapons we couldn't dream of. The Yeerks would prevail. The Yeerk empire would destroy the "Andalite bandits" they had been trying to capture for so long. The Yeerks, the Yeerks, the Yeerks! I was sick of it. That only fueled the Yeerk's eagerness to bother me, of course.  
Marco's Yeerk died in only one day. He stayed to help guard the rest though. Not that it was necessary. The cages would keep them. Jeke's went out in two days in the middle of the night. Ax told me. Cassie and I took longer. Tobias hadn't been captured either, but I didn't notice until I was free. Finally, the end came. I saw into the Yeerks memories. His first host: a Gedd, kind of dimwitted and slow, but exciting compared to a life of blindness and deafness. Then, he was promoted and moved up to Hork-Bajir. He was sent to Earth when they had sent a shipload of new Yeerks because the rate of infested Controllers per month was going up quickly. He didn't get any hosts but me. And now he was dying.  
He kept threatening until the pain was too much to bear. Then he fell silent for a long while. Finally, he let out one last cry and died. He managed, luckily, to wiggle most of the way out of my ear before he went. I pulled him, disgusted, the rest of the way out. He was all dry. He fell to the ground and disintegrated into dust. I let out a triumphant whoop of glee.  
Ax made an Andalite smile with his eyes. He gathered everyone else up and we had a small meeting. There wasn't anything to talk about really, so we went home. Little did we know that this wasn't the end of it. The Yeerk had given away one crucial bit of information. Our addresses. . . 


End file.
